Your Earthly Tethers
by Ahsurika
Summary: In another life, he could have been her spiritual guide; in this one, he was her enemy. No one alive knows better how a radical movement operates in secret, and Korra has nowhere else to turn. But Zaheer is not the same man who descended into the mountain prison long years ago. If a cage is the only course of action, does that make it right? Rated M to be safe.
1. Descent

**A/N: I went back and forth for quite a while on how to write a Zaheer who'd been consumed by the hopelessness of his solitude. The result ain't pretty.**

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As soon as the lone guard looked up at her, Korra knew that this visit would be different than the last.

She'd seen Zaheer's hatred then, nine years ago, his cloudy eyes studying her as if trying to determine how best to rip the air from her lungs. He'd guided her all the same, helping her become the Avatar she needed to be to defeat Kuvira's forces. Even if he was almost certainly out of touch this time — the White Lotus guards made a point of not interacting with a traitor — but Korra had planned her approach out in detail as best as she could without Asami to help her.

The relief in the young woman's expression, the wild edge to her crisp salute, threw Korra's thoughts to the wind.

"Is everything alright, Ren?" Korra asked, landing with intentional impact. Ren was a Republic City native, a talented seismic Earthbender who'd joined the White Lotus as a teenager only a few years ago. Famously reserved, more of a loner by nature than even workaholic Mako. "You look troubled, and I don't think it's because you're overwhelmed to see me."

Ren cracked a forlorn smile at that, and Korra's concern eased a little. At least the girl had retained her humor. "No, it's not that…though it _is_ lonely here," Ren said glumly, crossing her arms. "My last posting was too crowded, I guess, but I don't mind company every now and then. Here, I don't really see anyone for days at a time."

Korra grinned encouragingly as she Earthbended the lever that would open the gate. It ground open with a crackling rumble born of little use. "I'll see about shifting the rotation schedule when I get back. No need to trap you here for two whole months."

As she stepped forward, Ren's gauntleted hand closed around her forearm. The tiny links pressed into Korra's bare skin. "Avatar Korra, wait. Please forgive me, but…I should warn you. About Zaheer. He's not the same man you saw before the Renewal. He's…changed."

Korra frowned. There it was, the shadow in Ren's words, in her tone. "More than I should expect from nine years of imprisonment?"

Ren nodded. Too quickly, the movement spastic. Professionalism shuttered her expression, but in her rusted-copper eyes was a glint of fear. "I don't know. No, he's not free, nothing like that," she said hurriedly, seeing Korra's sudden alarm. "I still, I mean he's still there, but…I don't know how to explain it."

 _So if he's still there, and she knows he was already evil…then what's happened?_

She clicked her tongue. It didn't matter. She couldn't wait for the radical anti-royal faction in the Fire Nation to grow any larger. With Asami estranged from the other world leaders — including, her aching heart reminded her, Korra herself — and the rest of her friends too close to one side or the other, Zaheer was her only option.

He knew how to bide his time while preparing revolution. He would know how to stop others who did the same. "Then all the more reason for me to enter."

Korra looked up at the mountain with new eyes. The raw energy seeping out of it boiled with malice, simmering in Korra's senses. With how the shadows writhed in the setting sun's light, the rocks seemed to be breathing. She wanted nothing more than to get as far away as she could.

 _Spirits_. To purify this darkness she would need Jinora's help.

 _First things first._

As the stone door grated down behind her and the lift began its sturdy descent into the bowels of the mountain prison, Korra briefly touched the Avatar state. Cleansing, tumultuous, reassuring.

To steel herself for whatever she was about to face.


	2. Cavern

To live without breath. To fly without movement. To explore and observe without ever opening his eyes.

These are his truths. Too intuitive to be practiced skills, too transcendent to be art, they are the realities of his existences. Presence and the lack, simultaneously. It is a fine thing to break the bounds of normal perception, to close the dichotomous gaps between one thing and another.

He is a master, _the_ master. Where distinction and definition end…there, _there_ is true freedom.

 _Her,_ kill _her, squeeze her throat and watch her writhe, take the air from her lungs until_ —

The spirit world hums around him. It is aptly named, but only in part. Do not people refer to their souls as "spirits"? If true, the dead should be present. Yet another lie the world leaders tell their subjects. Why, only yesterday ( _time has no structure here_ ) he thought he saw P'li, standing tall in the grass, determination lighting her proud, sunburst eyes. Definitely no ghost. She wouldn't look at him, but that's alright. He doesn't look so good right now. One look from her could sear his chains away…well, not quite. He barks out a laugh. He enjoys the double sound it makes, both in the openness of the spirit world and off the rock of his cell, so he continues.

P'li always preferred to _blast_ them away. That he remembers.

He had often wondered aloud, in the early days of the Red Lotus, what would become of them when the world was free. Did the "new growth" of Guru Laghima's wisdom apply not only to the relationships between people and their governments, but between each other as well? She would cock her head and listen, looking down into his eyes with her blazing three-eyed stare that intimidated most into stammering submission but warmed the dark chill of his doubts. He would tell her, did tell her, that their promises only meant as much as they wanted them to, and she laughed her loud, hearty cackle and reminded him that she even now she was free to choose —

Until the Metalbender wrapped P'li's head in an iron _tomb_.

Where is he, again?

The spirit world. To be precise, by the River…huh. Which river? What is that feeling, the whisper of a finger brushing his shoulder?

Standing by the translucent ice-blue of the hesitant stream, he's not certain which is more disconcerting: that he can't remember its name, or that he can't warp it to his own desires. He frowns. But of course. Humans cannot dictate to the natural world. It runs its own course…

 _You tried, did you not? Is there more chaos under human control, or in the greater elemental ecosystem? Did you seek chaos or order in the Avatar's death?_

 _KILL._

Though, human precision is but the fallacy of beings flailing for mastery, for possession. Guru Laghima knew — a man could live without any anchors holding him down. Do not let go; rather, grasp nothingness. Where is P'li?

That whisper on his shoulder. Definitely a presence.

He stops.

Yes, he felt it. There it is again. Another tap on his soul.

He almost laughs.

There's only one person it could be. Avatar. Only she has visited him here. In all his time as a prisoner, he's had but one guest. Her. _Her_.

 _"Zaheer."_

Her address is outdated. 'Zaheer' is a name that describes a man defined, a man whose goal was to bring about true balance. That man became one with the void, ascending to a higher plane of existence than any human before him had so much as _dreamed_ of.

But perhaps…the Avatar. He must remember that she is the Avatar. Thousands of years of elemental wardens, stewards of the infinite bridge spanning spirit and material worlds, all encompassed in the spiritual essence of a single girl. Though she is no longer connected to her past lives, courtesy of the spineless traitor Unaloq, _this_ chained Airbender — powerful sage that he is, was, and shall ever be — knows, even if she herself doesn't, that the imprint remains.

What a child she is.

" _We need to talk_. _Come back to the material world._ "

 _Stick a knife in her lungs. Withdraw. Watch the blood spurt in time with her breath. She likes her rhythms, her cycles, surely she would —_

Hmm. She speaks across the spirit boundary with measured tone, of course, that is expected, but what he did not anticipate is the matching calm of her spiritual aura. She means to show him measured resolve, yes, even more so than when she last came to him three years ago, and she is succeeding. In part, at least, yes, in part. Like the pond of Master Kayue at the Southern Air Temple, its still surface belying the powerful spirit energies contained within it. Her voice is a pebble dropped into that glassy blue pond, impressing it with tremulous ripples.

Or was her last visit four years ago?

Suddenly the wish to see this girl again fills him up, air rushing into a vacuum. Resisting the urge is like trying to hold on to sleep as it leaves, drifting into a sunlit morning. The feeling leaves him stunned as the spirit world fades in a rush of howling wind.

Eyelids that have not moved in weeks creak open, audible to his ears. His prison is far darker than the part of the spirit world he had just come from, but still the green glow stabs through his eyes. He squints against the brightness.

 _There you are!_

Her eyes blaze with silver fire, and he rears back. Not far enough; his chains rattle as they pull taut. She holds a clay orb in one hand, twisted metal links in the other. Freed, freed by the power that holds the world captive. He is at the mercy of this wrathful spirit. She stalks him, exuding vengefulness, out to kill —

He pauses.

No.

This isn't right.

He closes his eyes and, rather than simply let the void enter him, breathes it in himself. It flattens him, the dying breath of a fading desert wind that allows the sand to settle. " _The prelude to true emptiness is an active grasp, dynamism into nothingness._ "

Were those his words or someone else's?

Zaheer opens his eyes.

She's older now. He frowns. _Older_. Not the girl he tortured and tried to kill, nor the young woman who came to him seeking to understand her trauma. Her utilitarian attire is that of a seasoned traveler, whispering of storm clouds and crimson dawns and the shadows beneath a seaside cliff. Beneath it her form is stocky and packed with power still, but more elegant, more refined than the untamed musculature of the super-athlete who could almost match him blow-for-blow. Her face, its cool sepia tones hardened by his prison's ghostly emerald glow, carries the faintest lines of care and wisdom.

 _It can't have been only four years. How much have I missed?_

Deep in the back of his mind, in the quiet beneath even the festering hatred he nourishes for her, he wonders what has happened in the world that brings this vision of peace and strength into this tomb of rot and spiritual decay.

Then he hates her once more, and his hatred contorts his face into a mocking rictus of welcome.

"You're late, demon."

She stops before him, and he is struck by the wariness in her grass-green eyes. Weren't they blue? Beyond the opaque silver orbs that haunt his waking hours, he recalls the sparkling surface of the southern seas in her stare. If only he could remember what the ocean looks like. Is this what blue is, now?

 _The glow from the crystals_. _Green_.

His anger turns to confusion. Obvious, obvious, obvious. Of course her eyes _look_ green.

How much has he lost?

A soft cry breaks from his chest, and he collapses. The air holds him aloft, his formidable power long since independent of his will, but his muscles have the strength of a faltering ocean breeze, and he's drowning.

"Zaheer, I need —"

" _You did this to me_." He cuts her off, his words wet with venom. Power that the spirits have used without his consent propels him right up to her, inches from her stern expression. She doesn't even blink. Nor does she speak.

But she's wary. That's why she's silent. "You don't know why you came here," he continues, "but I do. I called you here, my aura, my spirits, and you've come to die _screaming_."

She blinks, bewildered. "What are you —"

He flings himself at her, his hands cutting the space between them until his fingers are a hairsbreadth from her skin. One of his wrists cracks as he struggles against the chains, vainly attempting to reach her throat. Still, it is a triumph: he is faster than she. Perhaps if he chews the iron a little more, they'll give next time she visits.

The muscles in her jaw twitch, and something in her eyes flickers and vanishes. Without another word, she spins on her heel and strides briskly away from him.

No, you _fool_ , she'll leave, and if she leaves how is he to save himself?

Quickly he scrambles to rearrange his mind, digging clumsily through the filth of static memories — _the same, every day, all the same, no freedom, the peace of the cage!_ — to the dim embers of self that he knows remain somewhere inside him. It's harder than he expected. Much harder.

But in the end, he finds his voice. The old voice, the old Zaheer. "Korra. You came here for a reason, did you not?"

Visibly startled, the woman…Korra…stops. When she turns, her eyes contain a guarded hope that stabs him. "Yes. I did."

She walks back up to him, well within the slack of his chains. He wants to kill her, but his need to _know_ is overpowering, and so instead he simply gloats. "All this time, and you come to me for guidance, because I have answers that even Tenzin can't fathom. It made sense for me to teach you, did it not?"

Her eyes narrow. The cold rage in her expression makes his heart tremble. "You'd have killed me when you were ready."

 _KILL HER!_

He shivers with regret, his eyes closing as he imagines a future long ago closed off. "Yes. And you would have understood why." _This_ talk of her death at his hands does not drive her away, and he wonders at it. "Unfortunately, I can't teach you about the void anymore — you don't have the mind for it. Too content, too stubborn, too —"

"I'm not here for your musings on philsophy," the Avatar interrupts sharply. "I'm here to talk about your fanaticism."

The man once called Zaheer cocks his head. What's strange is not the familiarity of the topic, no, that part makes sense. The unsettling feeling in his stomach is from how _unfamiliar_ that resonance is.

 _Stall for time_. "How are _you_ , spirit girl? As I recall, last time you wanted me to help you get rid of some nightmares." A whisper in his ear, and he grins despite himself. Spittle pulls itself through his crooked teeth. "Not all is well in paradise, is it? You haven't been back to the spirit world with your lady friend in months. I would give romantic advice but, _well._ "

He suddenly feels fortunate that a look, even one from the Avatar herself, can't kill. The fear is disconcerting. "Do you still believe in chaos?"

 _Of course I fucking do you silly monk's pet_. _Chained, chained, so many chains._ _How dare the spirits make_ you _their bridge_. "Humans bend and break, and oppressive governments are as fragile as the people who cower beneath them. Someday, the world will return to its natural order." He puts a hand to his heart and throws his head back in mock dismay. From the spirit world, he can hear cackles of agreement. "With me as its instrument or not."

The thought of being an instrument draws a long, low chuckle out of him. How he once played the world. He rolls his eyes down to watch the Avatar. "Wonder how your order is doing now, in the face of industry's technological terrors. Yes, I felt the shockwaves all the way down here, shortly after you left, last time. Tell me, Avatar. Did your new spirit portal bring peace or simply peace of mind?"

He leaves unsaid his approval at her victory for natural balance. Within moments, he's stricken the thought from his mind entirely. Better to frighten her a little more than to admit that her portal has almost saved him from the malevolent spirits that have haunted him in his prison. Almost. "You locked me in here, but ideology never dies. Movements only fade when their ideals are forsaken, and my kind will never go away. Humans don't like to be ruled."

The Avatar crosses her arms, and he's pleased to see how disturbed she looks. My, how he would love to tear her trachea out. See if she can fill her lungs with holes ripped in her threat. It's why he's grown his fingernails out so far. And he's practiced. On the stone. Claw. Break. Regrow. Just like him.

His dream will soon be reborn.

"I need to root out…no. Nevermind. You would only help them." She's quiet, but he knows that look. Studying him like a _caged_ _animal_. "Zaheer —"

" _Don't call me that_!"

The immediate echo hits him like a boulder in his chest. He curls up, and the air allows him to sink slowly to the platform where his chains' excess has gathered.

When he looks up several minutes - if he can trust his count - later, the Avatar is halfway to the exit and walking briskly. The growing distance tugs again at his rapidly-beating heart, but this time he says nothing. Just watches.

She turns to face him, and they hold each other's gaze until the descending door cuts their connection. The stone grinds to a close, a dull boom that dies quickly in the still air of his cave.

Later, in a short-lived, increasingly rare moment of stark lucidity, Zaheer can't help but admire that the Avatar had her answers before he ever wondered what she was _really_ asking.


	3. Rise

In the stone elevator, Korra couldn't get enough air.

Her stomach heaved in a way that had nothing to do with her ascent. The mere sight of the lift's torches made her throat dry, but when she shut her eyes all she could see was the rabid grimace on Zaheer's unkempt face when he tried to claw at her. That, and the echoing laughter of the evil spirits who had been his only company for so long.

 _What did you expect?_

The air trembled, and Korra staggered, blinking rapidly.

 _You chained him in a dark vault and threw away the key. For a man with his philosophy, he might as well have been buried alive. Did you think he'd truly be left alone?_

As soon as the stone gate rose, Korra stumbled out into the sun.

And vomited.

"Avatar Korra!"

Shivering, she crumbled to her knees. Ren was beside her immediately.

"Avatar Korra, what's wrong?"

Zaheer had always been deeply attuned to the spirit world. He'd studied it for decades from within. In some ways his connection was as strong as, was _stronger_ than, Korra's own.

Heating her palms with a deep breath, she rubbed her arms to dispel a chill that had nothing to do with the twilight air. "What…what did we _do_ to him?"

 _How did you feel in Tarrlok's cell? Or when the Red Lotus chained you to a rock and declared that you would die there? What spirits would_ you _have attracted_?

But if they'd put him anywhere else, Zaheer could have Airbended his way out. Plus, he was a master tactician. Thirteen years he'd been imprisoned before, and from a single opportunity to escape he'd toppled the Earth Kingdom into years of chaos. He'd nearly succeeded in murdering Korra herself and ending the Avatar forever.

Her mind went back to a rocky pillar, to her broken and exhausted body trying desperately to expel a poisonous metal, to air suddenly cut off as it was torn from her lungs in a rush…

Ren put one arm around her shoulders and held her hair back with the other. Korra wiped her eyes with her sleeve as she stood. Every breath she took was ragged. "I've faced down evil before. Power-hungry leaders, revolutionaries who didn't care who they hurt." She swallowed past the lump in her throat. "But that was…" _What? A monster? Or a broken man surrounded by them?_

Ren cocked her head, her expression surprisingly calm. Korra suspected that seeing the Avatar's discomfort in some way quieted Ren's own. "So he wasn't like that, always?"

Korra shook her head, mind abuzz. "He could have been my teacher." _We imprisoned him and left him to rot. Twice. How can I be surprised that in the end, he did?_

It was an answer of sorts. If a single man trapped in a cage could muster such unrestrained malevolence, what about a whole faction of hidden fanatics? Lord Zuko had chased out his father's radical supporters more than half a century ago, but he'd never managed to finish the job.

If Aang had killed the Firelord, that movement might never have been born…

Hiroshi Sato's face, love for his daughter etched into his lined features. How much he'd aged in a few years in prison. He'd done what he could to redeem himself. Even nine years after his death, the memory of Asami's grief squeezed Korra's heart.

And others, memories of enemies not her own from long before her birth. An Earth king falling down an opening chasm to his death. A narrow, chiseled face that resembled a middle-aged Lord Zuko. Yakone, no longer able to manipulate blood at will.

 _But what worked for Aang to subdue Zuko's father allowed Yakone to father Noatak and Tarrlok._

No easy answer. As usual.

Korra had no sympathy for Zaheer. No government, from the smallest mountain hamlet to Republic City itself, was safe while he fought for his anarchy. But he wasn't the only powerful bender imprisoned for his crimes. He might not be the only one malicious spirits could corrupt.

 _What if Kuvira is vulnerable?_

"Avatar, if I…why did you come to see him?" Ren's smooth face and quiet voice betrayed nothing of what she might be thinking. Korra stared at her. Could she trust the Earthbender to keep Korra's worries private?

If she decided she couldn't trust even the _White Lotus_ , who could she possibly turn to?

 _Asami, I need you._

She rolled her shoulders, settling herself. "Let me ask you something first. You were in Republic City during Amon's uprising."

Ren took a step away from Korra, eyeing her carefully. "Yes," she answered softly. "I was eight."

Korra cocked her head. That unyielding defiance trembling in the woman's voice... "You…or your parents, they fought with the Equalists, didn't they."

" _We_ did." Ren lifted her chin, daring Korra's judgment. Korra didn't so much as twitch; that conflict was in the past, and all parties had done wrong, including Korra herself. Absent a reprisal, Ren continued in a gentler tone. "Though my father is an Earthbender, he couldn't stand what benders were doing to the city. None of us were radicals, but…my mother always says, war only sees two sides."

Two sides.

Ren cast her a sidelong look. "If this is about the war-machines…until Kuvira's attack, we thought only bending would produce such wanton destruction. But inventions like those can't even distinguish civilians from the ground on which they'll flee."

Korra nodded. "And people won't hesitate use that technology?"

Ren exhaled heavily, looking suddenly uncertain and more than a little guilty. "We were desperate, even when we'd taken the city. Well, when we _thought_ we had. If we'd had access to the kinds of weapons that exist now…I shudder to think what Amon would have done with them."

So it was the same. The constricting grip of an insidious status quo widened cracks into fissures, stirred discontent into rage. And Zaheer was only one man. A movement that festered as Zaheer's spirit had would be capable of…well, just about anything. Throw in an industrial alliance between a few enterprising inventors and _any_ villain - say, a legion of hidden Firebending zealots - and they wouldn't even need to wait twenty years for Sozin's Comet to come around. The world would be plunged back into war, but worse than ever before.

And if they _did_ manage to wait for the Comet...

Before their current…problems, Korra had argued long nights with Asami about what she would do if her creations fell into the wrong hands. Technology had no checks, no balance, beyond what the inventors themselves put into place. Asami would remind her that it was no different than a rogue bender like Zaheer doing harm, but Korra could handle any bender alive. Could _anyone_ rein in a rogue inventor, defeat rogue technology, or was such a thing beyond —

Ren punched her shoulder. Hard.

When Korra jumped back, turning a fiery glare on the girl, Ren only shrugged. "Please forgive me, Avatar Korra, but your moodiness is depressing me," she said reproachfully, still wearing guilt like a necklace of metal.

Blinking, Korra couldn't suppress a startled smile.

A deep breath. _Stop it, Korra._ In, out. _You're the Avatar. It's your duty to the world, no one else's, to maintain balance between humans and spirits but also between societies, between the elements. To stand and face their evils as well as celebrate their good._

 _And to face yourself with an open mind. You share responsibility for some of what's happening here._

Shaking her thoughts free, Korra reached for her air glider. One step at a time _. "Catch a scent, but don't be so distracted that you let the wind bowl you over,"_ Tenzin would rebuke her if he could hear her thoughts.

It was time to speak to his eldest daughter. "I'll be back in three days with Jinora. We'll purify what we need to and work to close any small rifts that have opened up. I didn't see any, but Jinora's sight is keener than mine." _And then I'll talk to Asami. I…I don't know how we'll reach each other, but I have to try. For the sake of balance and…and everything else, we have to succeed. We_ will.

"Avatar…"

Ren looked lost, and it occurred to Korra that she was only Jinora's age, not much older than Korra herself had been when Zaheer had poisoned and suffocated her. And she stood here alone day after day, not knowing quite what was happening beneath the mountain but nonetheless sensing the evil spirits that had coalesced around her prisoner. "What are you going to do about him?"

"I don't know yet. But something has to change." Korra swallowed a surge of self-loathing at leaving the young White Lotus guard behind, even if only temporarily. _Down there, he's a proxy spirit portal for all sorts of hostile energy. She should never have been exposed to this. It was my job to guess that something like this could happen. To try to stop it._ She put a reassuring hand on Ren's shoulder and the woman straightened automatically, girded with purpose. Korra smiled, masking her worries for Ren's sake. "And we're going to change it."

Korra snapped her glider open and leaped into the air flows, letting the wind currents lift her up and away from the lone Earthbender.

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 **A/N: Thanks for reading! All comments and critique are greatly appreciated.**


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